hitting

[Sweetjane]

Hello,

We are really struggling with this. DS (21 months) has been hitting other children almost anytime he is around them. It is not angry hitting just almost overly excited hitting. He gets really excited and happy when he sees other kids. We have been modeling appropriate behavior, given attention to the child who was hit, removing him from situations which appear to be over stimulating. We had been reading this "hands are not for hitting" book and other books about making friends. He has now started talking about "hitting boys and girls" and if we ask him if he wants to go the playground or something he says "hitting boys and girls" or something like that. I just do not know what to do, because this seems to be getting worse. Please any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[MtBikeLover]

My son also went through this stage starting around 17 months and lasting until he was about 2.5 It was by far the worst stage we went through because we could never be more than a foot away from him at any time. I used to be so envious of the moms at Gymboree that could sit and talk while their kids played because we could never do that.

So my advice is just to stay close and try to prevent it. Here is what we did. When you see him start to lift his hand, take it gently and say "We don't hit. We are soft with people." And show him how to touch softly. And just do this every single time. When he became more verbal, we started telling him our expectations before we went somewhere "Hitting (and then pushing, shoving, biting as it progressed to more agression) is not allowed. We are soft with our friends. If you hit, we will need to take a break from playing." And then we started removing him from the situation as he was a pretty hard hitter and we didn't want someone to get hurt. We would take him out and sit with him for a few minutes, explaining that hitting is not allowed and that it hurts. Then we would go back in. If he hit again, we left. It sucked as social outings were as much for us as for him, but some of the parents were starting to get upset by my son's hitting and it wasn't fair for their children to go through that.

But it did pass and now he rarely hits unless he is provoked.

[Danaoc]

Oh God, we went through this too and it was horrible! And my ds never really stopped and he's now 3.5. He's BETTER and less aggressive now that he has more language but he'll still react with aggression when he feels "wronged."

We dealt with it:
1. teaching him words like, "I need space" because he hit when kids were in his personal space and he felt threatened. "move back" would work too.

2. constantly staying close by to prevent the hitting, which was by far the most stressful because it would always inevitably happen. So sometimes I'd leave before he got overstimulated. Or I'd give him constant breaks away from the kids so that he would not get overstimulated.

3. the hitting got MUCH better when he was able to empathize and we did this with a lot of books too. See how he is crying? He's sad. See how she is happy? Or when I would stub my toe, I'd show how much it hurt and we'd really talk a lot about emotions and empathy.

4. If he hit out of frustration, we taught him that language too and validated his feelings or we would show him what he COULD hit.

5. We taught him that if he wanted to touch his friends, he could ask.

6. We also did some play wrestling with him which seemed to get out some of his need for physical play contact.

7. Also, to show the parents that I was aware of the situation and to give fair warning I would say, "Ds, do you need some space?" It would give him a moment to think about it and it would let the other child/parent know that they might be in a danger zone. Also when he hit, I didn't force the apology because I don't believe in the insincerity of it, but I would say, "Oh that poor little guy is crying because he got hurt. Hitting hurts others. Ds is learning how to communicate so I'll say sorry for him for now." I felt that this modeled what I eventually wanted him to do on his own.

8. And in worst case scenarios, I would pick him up and leave and say, "I need the other kids to be safe. When you hit, it is not safe for the other kids. Hitting hurts them. We'll go home now and come back another time."

Hope some of this helps! I realize some of this advice is for a slightly older child, but some of it we definitely started before 2. Good luck!